Waiting, Waiting, and More Waiting
Patience Is a Virtue for Buyers in Real Estate
Many of us don’t like to wait. Some are more tolerant of waiting than others.
We wait in line for food, or paying for groceries, or to return an unwanted item at some retailer. We wait on the phone, or wade through seemingly endless automated menus to hopefully reach the final destination…someone to help with our problem. We wait in traffic, we wait in the doctor’s office, and we wait in the security line at the airport.
Like it or not, sometimes you have to wait. If you don’t, you can’t accomplish your goal.
Buyers, play the waiting game, too. Indeed, there are many opportunities during the real estate transaction to wait.
Buyers wait to get word on their pre-approval after submitting all their financial information. This can be an anxious time, especially for first timers, and sometimes there are surprises.
The search for the right home, and at the right price, can be a very long drawn out waiting game – for some the wait to find that “perfect” house can be pretty frustrating.
Others, however, seem to be willing to wait for a very long time!!
But once you find that right home a whole series of waiting periods commences. And these typically cause a fair amount of anxiety, and impatience, and sometimes annoyance.
You wait for your offer on that house you love to be accepted, or responded to. Talk about anxiety. Even a few hours or overnight seem endless.
You then wait for disclosures from the seller, and the results of your home inspection, especially the written report that often details far more issues that you ever imagined, even if you attended the inspection
Waiting for that all-important appraisal can challenge anyone’s level of patie, especially if you have to wait through delays (the lender’s, the appraiser’s, the sellers’). WILL the home appraise at the purchase price or not? What if it doesn’t?
You wait for the lender to approve your loan – talk about raising the impatience level! Especially when it takes longer than you are told it will.
You wait for those loan documents to be produced, and then you wait for funding to take place, and for the wire you sent with your funds to arrive.
But the ultimate, and most gratifying, wait, which is what all this waiting has been about, is for the call that you are the new home owner! Now you can move in!
Even when you know you have to wait, and you’ve been told what the process is and the steps that have to be taken, waiting is tough for any buyer. And it’s frustrating when you are told your wait will be longer because of some delay. It’s out of your control, and you have no choice BUT to wait. It’s true in real estate, and in life as well.
Patience is a virtue. You won’t probably gain anything by acting out or behaving badly while you wait. Some are more patient than others and will tolerate a wait more readily. Sometimes, as in real life, you have to take some sort of action by asking questions, contacting someone else who might be able to help, or simply getting information about the status so you know what is going on and when the wait might be over. Having more information can make the waiting a little easier to tolerate.
In our business there is lots of waiting. Knowing that, and realizing how frustrating this can be for our clients affords us opportunities to keep them informed, provide timely and regular communication and updates, and help them to understand what the waiting is all about and why. We may not be able to change the wait, but we can help them endure the waiting game a bit more easily by being proactive, answering questions, explaining the process, and intervening with others (lenders, title, escrow, other agents) when there are delays.
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